


Reflect

by brodylover



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Drunkenness, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Past Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-29
Updated: 2016-11-29
Packaged: 2018-09-03 03:29:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8694598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brodylover/pseuds/brodylover
Summary: prompt: "I am sorry! Please forgive I didn't want this to..." "Shut up, you sicken me" (Morrigan)





	

There was glass everywhere. Her fingers were bleeding. The thing had shattered in her hands and she was lucky it hadn’t been worse than her hands getting cut. She should had felt lucky. She felt anything but lucky.

 

There were gems on the ground, red as blood, pale watery blue as tears. She couldn’t even tell now which were which, gems from drops of her blood, gems or the tears rolling down her cheeks. And there was the gold too, the frame, fallen to the ground, bent out of shape.

Everything was loud, shouting, her mother’s voice taking up any and all corners of the marsh. She didn’t know what hurt worse, the yelling or the cuts. She could hardly see the woman, could hardly see anything around the tears that made her black eyelashes stick together. And yet, amongst all of the yelling, was a strange need to speak. A need to apologize, a need to beg. She wanted to get on her knees and promise to be good, to do anything, just to have the mirror back, have it whole again.

 

“I am sorry! Please forgive I didn’t want this to…” it came out all at once, one sentence, one word, all garbled and wrong, her voice was shrill and thick with mucous. She didn’t even sound like herself through the sobbing.

 

“Shut up, you sicken me,” Flemeth growled and turned on her, storming back to the small cottage in the middle of nowhere.

 

And she was alone. She stayed there for a long moment, just staring in the direction Flemeth had gone, hoping that she would come back, hoping that there was still love somewhere in her heart for Morrigan.

 

She fell to her knees, finally allowed herself that weakness, and clutched herself. She didn’t care that she was kneeling in broken glass, that it dug into her knees and her shins, cutting her further. She couldn’t feel the physical. All there was was her own crying, her own hurt, the fact that her mother was so appalled at her disgusting need for validation, her selfish vanities. She rocked there, head down, feeling the world turn, feeling the blood on her skin cool and then dry, feeling the mucous run down her nose and over her lips.

 

Her fingers went out, her small magic was growing by the day, and hoped that it would be enough. She put the glass back together as best she could with her bloodshot and blinded eyes, her fingers shaking. It wasn’t perfect, but the glass was all together at least. When she poured her magic into it though, nothing happened. Her crying came back anew as her work went nowhere. She couldn’t even repair anything. Here, only Flemeth’s power mattered.

 

Leliana crashed down onto the bedroll at her side, a smile on her face and a bottle in her hand. Morrigan jumped at her sudden appearance, forced back into the present. The warden had given her a gift, a beautiful hand mirror, gold and jeweled and perfect. Not a replica by any means, but perfect all the same. Her first instinct was to hide it, keep it safe, but Leliana was a drunken fool, not a threat, not Flemeth.

 

“You, my dear, are beautiful!” Leliana’s voice was slurred and it was so funny to hear her talk like that, to see a sister of the chantry so far off her mark, the Morrigan could feel the tears in her eyes start to fade instead of fall. “You don’t need a mirror. We can see it enough for you.”

 

“Well, we all have or selfish urges,” Morrigan turned from her, set to putting the mirror in her bag. It would be safe there. No one had to know she possessed it. 

 

“Selfish?” leliana fell over Morrigan’s lap, reaching for the mirror before it could be put away. Morrigan pulled it further out of her reach. She didn’t know what leliana would do with it and she didn’t think she could bear losing it again. The warden would be so disappointed if she let it get smashed. “Nothing selfish in looking pretty. And you look very pretty.”

 

“I think you’ve had too much to drink,” Morrigan pushed the sister off of her lap and finished putting the mirror away.

 

“I think you haven’t had enough!” Leliana shoved the bottle into her hand, “You look sad, looking at yourself. It’s not a good look for you at all.”

 

“I find it at least a marginal improvement over intoxicated.”

 

Leliana cocked her head and suddenly, a terrible look of hurt came over her. Morrigan felt something in her chest, something strange and unusual and not right at all. She almost wanted to apologize. “Am I not pretty?” Leliana asked, voice getting a tad too shrill.

 

“You’re very pretty, but you’re also drunk and not at all as a sister should be.”

 

“This isn’t the chantry, Morri,” Leliana smiled and things were right with the world again. The she fell over and landed on Morrigan’s shoulder. “I can do what I want. You seemed sad, I wanted to cheer you up.”

 

“Don’t call me Morri,” Morrigan snarled, loving the pet name as she denied it, “and I don’t need cheering.”

 

“It’s your mum, huh? You can tell me.”

 

“I don’t and it isn’t.” she lied.

 

Leliana kissed her then. It was small and light, just on her cheek, but she did it with such abandon, so little care for what the big bad witch would think, that Morrigan’s cheeks turned red immediately. “Flemeth’s not here. You can be yourself. This is a second chance, for all of us. Zevran gets a new life, not as a lone assassin but as a friend. Alistair was a warden, but now he’s a leader, out to save the world. I was a bard, then a cloistered sister, now a woman on a mission from God. Sten was a criminal, lost to the blood rage, now he’s a friend. And then there’s you. You were alone in the wilds, other than your mother. Why not let yourself start anew? Start a life as a happy person, who puts herself first, and stops pretending she doesn’t care about people.”

 

“I’m not, I do, and I don’t.” Morrigan argued.

 

Leliana shrugged, put her hand on Morrigan’s shoulder, and used it to push herself up and onto her feet once more. She staggered, body threatening to betray her and make her fall back down, but caught herself.

 

“Drink and be merry, Morri,” leliana instructed “and think about what I said. You’re safe here, with us.”

 

Morrigan wasn’t sure about that but, watching Leliana stumble back towards the fire, with the others, she was almost tempted to follow. No, that was just a distraction, she didn’t need any of them. Leliana didn’t know what she was talking about, she was drunk off of her feet.

 

Morrigan lifted the bottle to her lips and, to her surprise as well as her dismay, found the thing full. Leliana hadn’t been drunk at all. She had been played.

 

The bard was at the fire, dancing terribly and trying to get Sten to join her, while the actual drunks, Alistair and Ohgren sang two very different songs at the same time. They all seemed so happy. Once the bottle was empty, if she was feeling up for it, maybe she would join them.

 

Maybe.


End file.
